by Adam Vine
“Guys, can we talk about something else? This is giving me a headache,” Bea said.
“You brought it up,” I said, taking the bong out of her hands.
Jay packed me a fresh bowl while Popeye sniffed Officer Skoakland’s pants.
“Hey, little buddy.” Popeye flopped down ecstatically at Officer Skoakland’s touch. “His name’s Popeye? Nice. I used to love that cartoon. You teach him any tricks?”
“He can find weed and a lighter,” Jay said.
“You ever want a real job, Popeye, you come down to K-9 and let me know. We’re always in need of a few good mutts.” Officer Skoakland gave Popeye a dismissive pat on the rump. The pug scampered off down the stairs, disappearing from sight. “Cute dog.”
I blazed and passed the bong to Rob.
Officer Skoakland rubbed his chin. “I knew Benny DeLucio a long time. ‘Bout twenty years. Real piece of shit. But, as ashamed as I am to admit this, I once called that Chester Molester my friend. Gosh, that was a long time ago.”
Carter whistled.
“We certainly had our differences, me and Benny,” Officer Skoakland went on. “He was a little bitch, for one. Didn’t surf. Didn’t stand up for himself. Couldn’t throw a punch. Never got laid.” He finished his beer, gazing into the brown glass before chucking the empty bottle over the side of the deck. “Guy was a freak. But damn, could he play the piano.”
He snapped out of his reverie. “Say, Tarzan. You gonna pass that, or you just gonna hang onto it like it’s the last tree in the jungle?”
Terrified, Rob passed him the bong.
“Christ, you people are uptight.” Officer Skoakland lowered his face to the bong and inhaled.
“Uh… Officer,” I started to say, but he cut me off through a fat cloud of smoke.
“Call me Andy.”
“Okay, uh, Andy. Earlier, you said you knew Mr. DeLucio because you went to college together, right?”
Blowing O’s, he muttered, “Yup.”
“And you said Mr. DeLucio lived in this house, right?”
“That he did.”
“So, did you live here too, or…?”
A sly curl extended one corner of Officer Skoakland’s lips. “Drew-buddy, didn’t we already talk about this?”
His eyes wandered across the backyard to the orchard, the redwood trees, the bright beacons of red plastic cups littering the grass. “God, being up here takes me back.”
“You used to live here?” Jay said.
“Class of ‘94.”
Jay, Bea, and I made nervous eye contact.
“You couldn’t have mentioned this before?” Bea said.
“You didn’t ask,” Officer Skoakland said.
Bea connected the dots. “Oh my God. You’re Andy? You’re in those pictures we found.”
I coughed so hard I thought I would choke.
Officer Skoakland gave me a gentle pat on the back until I was done. “Guilty. Officer Andrew Skoakland, Santa Cruz P.D., in the flesh. That’s me. Little old me. But, uh… what are you talking about? What pictures?”
Bea folded her arms. “We told you about this. The ones buried under the house.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. I remember. Well, if they were Benny’s pictures, I’m certainly in a few. That guy always had a camera glued to his face.”
“Was it a Polaroid camera?” Jay said.
Officer Skoakland took another beer from the case at Jay’s feet. “How the fuck should I know? It was twenty years ago. That’s longer than you’ve been alive.”
Jay thought about it. “No, it’s not.”
“I looked different back then. Had hair, for one. Good hair. Can you believe that? I used to be blonde.” Officer Skoakland laughed, draining half the beer in a single gulp. “God, I miss those days. We had good times here.”
“So, what about the bones?” Bea said.
Officer Skoakland gazed at her blankly. “I have no memory of that. Drew mentioned it once. It was probably a practical joke. We were always pranking each other. You kids would call it ‘trolling.’ My friend Marty…” Andy’s voice trailed off. I thought he was going to cry. When he spoke, he sounded like he was trying hard to hold back a sob.
“Marty was the king of that mountain. Marty got everyone. That guy could prank the NSA. Scared me half to death once by pretending to be a serial killer. Came into my room late at night wearing a hockey mask, holding an actual butcher knife over his head. Almost got himself shot.
“I still chuckle at that. Damn it, I miss that guy. He’s dead, y’know. Died in a car crash. I was the one who, uh… responded. I had to clean my best friend out of the burned-out wreckage of his own car. Or, what was left of him. Yup. Good times.”
Officer Skoakland’s voice was almost inaudible. “You guys don’t know how lucky you are. Hold onto each other. Cherish the time you have together for as long as you can. You don’t know how fast this will all be gone.”
“That’s terrible,” Bea said. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“Yup. Yup. Yup.” Andy finished his beer.
“But you don’t remember digging up any human bones in the basement of this house?” Bea said.
“Nope.”
“Not posing with them?”
“Nada.”
“Not chasing Apple through the house with a skull? Nothing?”
Officer Skoakland looked up. “How do you know about Apple?”
“Her name was written on the pictures,” Bea said. “You and your other housemates, too.”
“Oh.” Officer Skoakland reached for another beer, but changed his mind. “So, uh. Can I see them? It might help me figure out what the hell you guys are on about.”
“We burned them,” Bea said.
Officer Skoakland rubbed his temples. “Of course you did. Well, there you go. Not a whole lot I can tell you about a box full of burned pictures.”
Bea folded her arms. “Who said they were in a box?”
Officer Skoakland ignored her. “These pictures show anything really crazy? Other than, uh, the bones?”
You mean other than the updates, which showed your roommates dead? And mine having sex?
“Lots of partying,” Bea said.
“Drugs,” I added.
“You know, now that I think about it, it’s all coming together: Beatriz’s stalker, the pictures, the sleeping bag Drew found under the house. Benny DeLucio was a man of strange, often criminal predilections. It would make sense, given his nature, that he was still lurking down there, right up until you guys caught him breaking in.”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure it was him,” Bea said. “I never got a good look at the person who was following me. And the guy who punched me hit hard. And he was fast, but he hurt his leg while I was chasing him, so he’d be walking with a limp.”
“Hmm, yeah, that doesn’t sound much like our Benny. He’s not walking at all.”
Bea rolled her eyes.
“You have any other suspects in mind? Or reasons to believe these weren’t the same person?”
“You would never do something like that?” Bea said. “Y’know, break and enter, sneak around someone’s house without a warrant?”
Officer Skoakland snorted, cocked an eye at her. “Beatriz, honey, I’m a peace officer in the United States of America. If I wanted to spy on you, I wouldn’t need to sneak around your basement to do it.”
“I don’t live here,” she said.
“Oh. Right.” Officer Skoakland took the bong out of my hands, took his hit, and passed it to Bea. “But, rest assured. There’s nothing you guys could possibly be doing that would even remotely interest me enough to come over here when I didn’t have to. No offense, but I did more drugs and got more pussy when I lived at this house than all of you combined. With the exception of you, Beatriz.”
Bea shook her head in disgust. “Is this guy serious?” she asked me under her breath.
“Serious as your mothers when they decided to let you abortions live.�
�� Officer Skoakland made as if he meant to leave. “But, if there was anything, say, really unusual in those pictures – I mean, other than some fake bones – you should tell me. I might be able to help you all solve the mystery of Sunny Hill. You know, to put your minds at ease.”
Bea stroked her hair, thinking. “There is one thing.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually take me up on that offer, but knock yourself out.”
“There were a lot of pictures of you and Apple.”
“Apple,” Andy echoed. “Apple. Good old Apple. She was a special one. Did you figure out Benny was in love with her?”
“Hard to miss,” Bea said.
“Did you figure out he raped her, too?” Officer Skoakland said.
I straightened up in my seat.
“What?”
A grimace possessed Officer Skoakland like he was in that split second when you wake up from a dream of falling, only to realize you’re still in bed. “I wouldn’t normally talk about someone like this after they passed away, but you guys deserve to know.” He took a deep breath. “I remember one night, we were partying hard. This was close to the end. Must’ve been May of ’94. Classy broad that she was, Apple had once again puked on herself and passed out on the garage floor. She still had puke in her hair when Benny said he was taking her upstairs to put her to bed.
“I didn’t raise an eyebrow at it. He was always a white knight. Being the brilliant computer genius he is – sorry, was – you’d think old Benny majored in computer science. He got his degree in women’s studies. You so much as said the word bitch in his presence, and he’d lecture you on why women weren’t objects, the male gaze, et cetera, the whole burrito.
“So I thought to myself, he’s carrying Apple upstairs, she’s practically a fucking corpse, so what? The guy was a hundred pounds soaking wet; he’s just trying to be chivalrous. Didn’t give it a second thought. I mean, what’s he gonna do? He was freaking obsessed with her, but as you probably know, Benny is – sorry, was – a giant, walking vagina. He wouldn’t pull the wings off a fly if it was dead. Or, so we thought.
“The next day, the whole mood in the house changed. Darkened, like a black cloud was hanging over us. Is that a good enough metaphor for you, Beatriz? Great. All of a sudden we were like strangers. We all felt it. I thought fire would come up from the ground if I so much as farted around those goons, like it was the end of the world or something.
“Before that night, we’d all heckle each other to no end. We were ruthless. Then, after that morning, if you said anything to Apple, absolutely anything, she’d break down – crying, yelling, the works. Benny didn’t come out of his room for weeks. Wouldn’t look anyone in the eye. The next time I had a conversation with him that lasted longer than five seconds was graduation. I didn’t think it was possible for him to get even more introverted and weird, but he did. He really did.”
“So you think he raped her?” Bea said.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“There’s something you’re not telling us.”
“You know what? You’re right. There is.” Andy got quiet for a moment. When he resumed his story, his voice was lower, quivering with a vulnerability I’d never seen out of a guy as big and tough as him. “The last time we all partied together was the night before we moved out. Apple pulled me into one of the empty rooms and started bawling in my arms. She asked me if I remembered the night she got sick, when Benny put her to bed. I said I did.
“She told me that the next morning, she’d woken up naked. Said her ass hurt. Said there was blood on her sheets. I asked her to show me the sheets, but she’d thrown them away. She’d been sleeping in a sleeping bag, on her mattress, for over a month. I put two and two together. My first reaction was to kill the son of a bitch. That night, after he passed out, I took the Glock my dad gave me when I was twelve and went into Benny’s bedroom. Sat and contemplated blowing his brains out for hours.”
“So, why didn’t you?” Natalia said.
“Shit. I would have,” Jay said.
“He was my friend. Not anymore, after that. But I made the choice to let him live. I thought Apple would report him. But, she made the choice not to. Never said a word to the cops.”
“Does anyone else know about this?” Natalia said.
Andy shook his head. “You guys do. Me. Her. He did, but that’s moot. That’s everyone I can think of. But, it’s why I ended up going into law enforcement, even though I majored in physics. I wanted to help people who’d been hurt by predators like Benny. Wasn’t surprised in the least when Mr. Benjamin DeLucio ended up as a sex offender.”
Andy washed his face through his hands. Carter passed him the bong. He waved it away. “Nah, brother. I’m good. Higher than Lucy in the sky right now. Not bad, Jay-meister. That chronic was da bomb. My old pal Marty would say it was more Chronic than Sonic, as in, uh, the Hedgehog. Never mind, probably before your time. Anyway, if I was still a pothead like you slackers, I might be inclined to buy a pound. Alas, not anymore.”
“Uh, no problem, Officer,” Jay said.
Officer Skoakland rose, stretching. “Well, you can rest easy now. Anyways, what I just told you guys stays between us. Got it? He was a monster, but he’s dead. Case closed. None of you have anything more to worry about. So let it lie. The only reason I let you in there to see him in the first place, was to show you that sometimes, these things work themselves out.”
“Golly, that makes me feel so much better,” Bea said.
“I’m detecting a hint of sarcasm there, Ms. Ferreira.”
We sat in silence and watched the beer drain from our bottles, until Bea said, “I’m sorry, officer. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. But I’ve been terrified every second for the past week. Haven’t slept, haven’t eaten. Every time I go to the bathroom I take a kitchen knife with me.”
Officer Skoakland nodded. “Anyway, I gotta split. This mary-jew-wanna is making me jittery, and there’s about a thousand homeless skulls down on Pacific Avenue that ain’t gonna crack themselves. That’s a joke, Beatriz. Don’t put that on your social justice blog.”
“I don’t have a blog, dick.”
“Sure you don’t.” Officer Skoakland went to the stairs, stopping to give us a final thought. “If you all take anything from this, just remember what I said about unions. It’s easy to go down the wrong road. Not every path out of the hole is good. Some are destructive. Some kill, or worse, they lead you to a place where you end up alone.” Officer Skoakland whistled. “Now I’m rambling. My deepest condolences on the loss of your wonderful neighbor. You boneheads carry on.”
***
I was sitting on the beanbag chair playing Resident Evil: HD when Jay burst into the living room in a panic. There was a twisted look on his face, and he was sweating, eyes darting frantically to every corner of the room.
“What’s up? Thought you guys were getting ready to leave?” I said.
Jay looked at me as if he hadn’t known I was there. “Have you seen Popeye?” he said.
I paused my game and sat up straight. “No. Why?”
“Think, man. When was the last time you saw him?”
I struggled to my feet, waiting a few seconds to catch my breath. “Uh, I guess it was when we were out on the deck. So, an hour ago?”
Jay chewed the inside of his lip.
“What’s going on, Jay?”
“He’s not here.”
“Did you look outside?”
“I looked everywhere, man.”
I scratched my belly, trying to puzzle out where Popeye could have gone. “Maybe he wandered off and got lost.”
I put a hand on Jay’s shoulder. “Hey, man. Chill. Worst-case scenario is he walked a little ways up Escalona. There’s no way he made it all the way to Bay or High Street by now. Watch. We’ll walk for five minutes, find him, and he’ll be fine.”
Except, he won’t, I thought. Jay never lets that dog out of his sight. There was someone living in our base
ment who eats stray cats. Popeye’s gone.
Jay punched his palm, seething. “Man, I told those fucking idiots not to get him high again.”
***
It didn’t take us five minutes to find Popeye. It didn’t even take three. Jay called his name in a singsong voice as we walked up the driveway towards the street. “Popeye! Popeye! Here, buddy! C’mere, boy!”
Ry put his fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.
I yelled for him, too, although I knew it wouldn’t help. There was no response but the whisper of leaves in wind.
“He’s never done this before,” Jay said.
Jay looked like he was ready to bolt, but he couldn't choose a direction, his mouth moving soundlessly, his lips crumpling and working. He wore his distress like a stained shirt, and sounded like he was about five seconds away from hyperventilating. “Even when I let him out in the backyard. He just sits there by the door waiting for me to let him back in. Jesus, where is he?”
“Shit, I mean, we just got him a little high…” Ry started to say, but Jay cut him off.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Ry hung his head.
I thought Jay was going to cry. I’d never seen him so upset. Jay gave Ry a smoldering look, then turned and strode down the driveway just as Bea appeared coming up the other way. “What’s all the yelling about?” she said.
White hope filled Jay’s eyes. “Please tell me you’ve seen Popeye.”
Bea put her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh my God. No, I haven’t. Is he all right? I just went home to get my bubbler.”
“We don’t know.”
Bea surveyed the street, shielding her eyes with the palm of her hand.
We were almost to the top of the driveway when her face went pale. Bea raised a trembling finger towards Jay’s ice cream truck, parked on the curb a few houses down from Sunny Hill. “J-Jay. J-Jay,” she choked. “Oh God. Oh God.” She turned away, gagged, and started crying.
We rounded the top of the driveway and I saw a red mess spread across the hood of Jay’s truck. My stomach knotted with each step I took closer to that bloody, chewed-up sack of hair and bones. It only vaguely resembled the dog it had been before something had turned him inside out.